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Sunspot Grows to 20 Times Size of Earth
TheHedgehog writes "A sunspot group aimed squarely at Earth has grown to 20 times the size of our planet and has the potential to unleash a major solar storm. 'The implications of this spot have scientists on the edge of their seats,' NASA said in a statement Friday. 'If the active region generates coronal mass ejections (CMEs), massive explosions with a potential force of a billion megaton bombs, it will be a fairly direct hit to Earth and its satellites and power grids.'"
Although it could potentially knock out some satellites, I think we should be sympathetic toward the sun as it goes through this difficult period.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
The July 2004 issue of National Geographic had a large article about the sun and how we've come to understand how it works.
It was a fascinating read in the print magazine. I'm not 100% sure that the online article is 100% of the printed article.
Did you know that the radiation that eventually becomes visible light takes 100,000 years to escape from the center of the sun to the corona, due to how dense matter is packed in the middle?
From there it's only 8 minutes to earth.
The corona of the sun itself is hundreds of times hotter than the surface of the sun.
National Geographic sun article
It was a big, scary sunspot on July 23rd. SpaceWeather.com are currently reporting: Sunspot 652 is decaying, but it still has a "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. And it's not pointing at Earth anymore, it's on the right limb of the Sun.
With all of this intense solar storm activity we've been seeing lately, how can anyone with a properly raised consciousness doubt that human beings are upsetting the delicate solar environment? In fact, I hear Michael Moore has another documentary coming up which will PROVE that Americans in general, and Republicans especially, can be entertainingly blamed for most of it.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Quite a few things have happened due to solar flares. Satellites knocked out, transmission lines shut down, etc. Check out "Storms from the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather" by Michael Carlowicz and Ramon Lopez - I read this a while back and it listed a number of these consequences.
I actually saw the thing during my morning commute - must have been on Friday. There was just the right amount of fog and clouds so that you could "look" at the sun. I saw a black dot - reminded me of the pictures of the transit of Venus a while back. It occurred to me that if it was a sunspot, and I could see the thing that clearly, it must be gigantic.
And when it swooped down to attack, I could see that I was right...
I was driving to work and the sun was coming up through some haze and I could clearly see this big ass sunspot in the lower left-hand quadrant. I kept meaning to find an article about it, maybe some pix, too, but better late than never, I guess.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
No, it's not bigger then the X17 event last October.
Remember, you can always get up to date information from NOAA's space weather site, including the page that has updated X-Ray images of the sun, auroral maps, and measurements of the magnetic field among other things.